Body

Disclosure: Muscle Ropes, Under Armour and GNC are clients of my company, FitFluential. I was provided with the product but all opinions are my own.

What's UP my peeps? I am psyched to share this post. Why? Because now I have all the tools, I understand all my new training, I have the program, the plan, I asked Mark all of my up front questions and it is ON. And -- I shot a few videos about this already but I do believe this next chapter is going to wow me. My doubts are hitting the backburner, now that I have experienced the "cardio" that Mark has designed for me and the 2nd circuit blast he designed. Holy Crabcakes it is intense, it is hardcore and it WORKS MY CORE OMG.

So---- for tonight I want to focus on, truly, one of my ABSOLUTE favorite new pieces of fitness fun. TRULY TRULY I cannot imagine anyone NOT wanting their own set of Muscle Ropes. I knew I would love these things-- haven't we all seen them in maybe a Crossfit Box or a gym--- but (I will sound like an infomercial here) NOW YOU CAN HAVE ONE AT HOME!! ;-) But for real......it's so timely that I am reviewing this now right as all of my training is changing and now I will use these in all of my workouts. YOU GOTTA GET YOU SOME.

So this is my new playground-- my toys for my new training. And the Muscle Ropes are substantial, I'm told they weigh 20lbs total for this model. I've had kettlebells for a while but have not used them in ages, I've had my Ultimate Sandbag for a while (now with options for travel hello) and I just bought the foam roller and Mark gave me a tennis ball for glute pain I mean myofacial stretching or something. Take a peek at Mark demo-ing the Muscle Ropes for me Monday:

Muscle Ropes Demo by Mark Crabtree

Yea...this is no joke. He had me doing a walk through of my new "cardio" and it was like do this move for as long as it takes to get your heart rate up to 85% max, then stop. Let the heart rate come down to x then do the next move or the same move. I was screaming loud things when he had me doing the Muscle Ropes thing. It's fun. Like when you throw down a huge Dynamax ball on the ground. That's fun too. I like aggressive things like this don't judge me. Now-- he also demoed for me some other moves that I felt compelled to share with you. Enjoy this Valslide move:

RIGHT?? And this:

So. The plan is 5 days a week ONLY-- 3 days of my strength training and 2 days of the cardio plan. OMG. And yet, I am seeing the intensity, I am seeing how much this is going to change my body-- yea, there is still part of me inside, first of all missing running of course but feeling like "I should be doing a ton of cardio" but the feeling of these workouts and the new DOMS associated with working muscles you haven't in a while....it's exciting.

Now on the Muscle Ropes side-- I'm including some of the links to other posts from other FitFluential Ambassadors because I think you'll see the flexibility in this product and how all these different people are mixing it up and loving it. SERIOUSLY like, this plus the Valslides plus Ultimate Sandbag and Kettlebells- that's a home winning badass gym that can change everything for you. I've had the other stuff for a while but now this, I am just I think you can tell ridiculously in love. What do you think??

And Miss Kristin shows her version with the jump rope option HERE. I am Kristin's biggest stalker because I am obsessed with her recipes. But Miss Colavechhio and Kasey (Powercakes) are in there too, frankly so many of these ladies should have their own cooking show for fitness fanatics. We're working on that. ;-)

So, I will "summarize" by saying. I love Muscle Ropes. I am obsessed with them. I will use them every day and brag about it a lot. And pretty much everyone that sees them wants them. So - are you gonna dive in?? What do you think?

Finally, check out what bada** Mr. Jeremy did with his ropes-- people listen when he speaks. Just sayin. CLICK HERE. Below is (so behind on blogging and posting videos here sorry) a ramble-on-a-thon FROM right before I got the throw down From Dowdell and Roussell, so keep that in mind. I was doing my old focus and things changed, but it's cool cuz it talks about the UA39 too.

And at night I am IN LOVE IN LOVE IN LOVE with this, because @RangerDutch told me it is great for recovery but puts him to sleep LET ME TELL YOU IT WORKS and I never take Advil PM every night. Seriously. AMAZING. AMAZING. AMAZING and it tastes great.

Do you have problems sleeping? Probably not after watching my videos right?? ;-)

Discloure: GNC, Polar and Under Armour are clients of my company, FitFluential. All opinions are my own.

This is how I feel after my workouts. --Well, I should clarify. NOT after Yoga. After yoga, I feel more like this:

But I will say this, I am back in my game (except for running which I'll get to....still resting out the whole Achilles issue. NOT pleased with this.) and it feels BETTER EVERY DAY!!! Aunt Flo just left this morning and even with her around I just got up each day feeling lighter and tighter and more -- yea, I'm gonna rhyme, like a FIGHTER. I've been getting up earlier this week -- 7am each day-- and I know that next week I can start transitioning to 6:30am and so on......success is building on success. I am doing cardio AND weights - at HOME this week and then next week will transition probably to doing 3-4 of the days at the gym, still figuring out what schedule works best for me. Really the biggest variable I'm working around is the fact that I now do my yoga every night-- so whereas earlier this year, I'd do an exta cardio session at night, now knowing my evenings are yoga, it makes that do I need extra cardio like before to achieve the last part of this fat loss-- or will amping up my weights-- and doing cardio every morning plus WEIGHT-Y workouts (meaning some are not isolation training they are a boot camp type thing) will that be "enough"? Well, we'll see. But my man Bill is gonna be my guide. Say hello to Bill y'all. I had fun with his photo as well. See what happens when you give me 5 minutes on PicMonkey??

Bill is a man-beast. You'll be seeing a lot more of him here and on FitFluential.com -- OMG so much fun stuff going live 10/1. I hope you are all (all 4 of you that read my blog) members of FitFluential. Finally, it's time for some big fun and perks for you guys and girls! ;-) And Bill is going to be my guide to abs of steel and being able to become more monster like without needing Botox. I'm thrilled with it. And for what it's worth, although I added fire to his photo and lightning (the fire in my photo was all natural, I am on fire after my workouts DUH)- nothin about Bill and the beast bod is photoshopped. The man knows what he's doing. He's the one that told me to do TWO SCOOPS OF BLUE in my Prosculpt every day. BRING. IT. BILL.

And remember how I said you should be a FitFluential member? Yea. If you like this kind of GNC goodness, let's just say- you should be a FitFluential member. NOW. And I am very pleased-- still surprised frankly by how well this works, but very pleased that this is now my nighttime BFF-- this recovery drink from GNC that my BFF Dutch told me about. I did not think it could do what he said but I have broken up with Advil PM. Seriously.

Here is my babble-on-a-thon about something. Not sure, I forget. Use this to help you fall asleep ;-)

Now. It's yoga time. I love this part of the day. I had missed my yoga sesssions like 5 days in a row because of just ISSUES ok and boy-- that was a bad slip and my body missed it. ;-( I really like everything yoga does for me body and mind.

OK so I was trying in this somewhat awkward selfie to point to the mantra on my cap. It says LOVE LIFE. 😆😆😆😆 And wow. . .now more than ever I do. 👌👌👌👌👌 I'm heading out for an hour long walk today , yes a walk, to get me back on track but easing into my workout since I still have some congestion in my chest. 😵😵😵😵 I thought that it would be a good post to share with you guys that this is an example of me BEFORE and AFTER in several areas. ➡➡➡➡➡ Me BEFORE would have jumped into my workouts 100% the second that I thought that I possibly could. And me BEFORE would have probably made myself more sick and set myself back 7 days. And then I would get more stressed out and feel more full of anxiety both about the workouts and missing work. 😈😈😈😈😈 Me NOW = sensible more calm and acting on experience, knowledge and WISDOM. 👏👏👏👏👏 Second point is that me before any time I was working out would be listening to a playlist of my favorite music. Me NOW is all about using this time to listen to the most amazing audio books 📖📖📖📖📖 or podcasts from all of these outstanding individuals that are teaching me how to improve upon myself personally professionally 💲💲💲💲financially physically ☝☝☝☝☝☝spiritually in every way possible. I heard a quote once that said, " a garden is never finished" and it's one of my favorite things ever to remind myself of. 💥💥💥💥 Because we should all focus on learning in every conceivable way every single day. Because learning and improving and growing never stops. CAN I GET AN AMEN? I am loving the fact that every day every week every month I am creating more before and afters for myself than I ever have in my entire life. Are you? #changeisthenewblack #FitFluential #betterthanmyyesterday #fitteaminspire #chicago

First day I feel BETTER enough to MOVE! 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟 oh, how I appreciate my good health. I am going to take it easy today and just break in my new @asics with a brisk walk maybe with some light running mixed in there but I still have a slight bit of chest congestion so I'm going to be wise and not set myself 2 steps back. It's always been my tenancy if I get sick to jump in 200% working out too fast and then I end up staying longer. So I am Not all about that. Nothing like hot 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥 new kicks to add some sass to my step! What is your go-to brand of shoe for running? And if you just started running are you in need of guidance on your running shoes do you have any idea how to choose the right type of running shoe for yourself? #fitfluential #run #asics #client #ffcheckin #betterthanmyyesterday #fitteaminspire #chicago

Pretty much. Via @nicolelapin ⬅⬅⬅⬅ get her book BTW. Awesome.

What girl lost 5lbs ON VACATION even? That's right!! Not one cheat from my new insulin resistance diet approach and CLEARLY it is what my body needed. 👍👍👍👍👍👍 It's actually become easier each day, although being sick this week all I wanted was ice cream!! LOL. So for those of you following along I'm dealing with massive hormonal imbalance- including hypothyroid and insulin resistance- I have done so much reading an additional research on the topic of metabolic syndrome to learn what specifically in our diet and our lifestyle can make positive changes to reverse the situation. 👌👌👌👌👌And the changes that I have incorporated and applied are definitely working and not only am I starting to look better every day but I certainly feel better everyday. Tune in to my blog KellyOlexa.com for more details and upcoming events and books around these topics. 😊😊😊😊